المواهب

by Aleksandr Bek, الكسندر بيك

بدأ الكسندر بيك حياته الأدبية في الثلاثينات من هذا القرن في «مكتب المذكرات» الذي أسسه مكسيم غوركي. كانت مهمة ذلك المكتب وضع تحقيقات أدبية وقصص وروايات عن أبطال العمل الأحياء المشتهرین بانجازاتهم في عملية البناء الجبارة التي قامت في الاتحاد السوفييتي على نطاق واسع آنذاك. ففي الجلسات الممتدة ساعات طوال كان ألكسندر بيك الجليس يجمع مواده الأدبية ويهذب قلمه ليضحي «كاتب شخصیات». إن أبطال رواياته أناس أحياء فعلا ولكن المؤلف لا يقوم بنقل صور فوتوغرافية عنهم بل يبدع روايات فنية عنهم. فبعد أن يجد في واقع الحياة بطلا يجدر بأن يكون من أبطال روايته يعيد خلقه على طريقته ويشدد على ناحية من طبعه ويخفف من ناحية أخرى، ويعمق فكرة معينة ليكسب شخصية بطله شمولية أكثر. هكذا رأت النور أفضل مؤلفات ألكسندر بيك مثل «طريق فولوكولامسك» و«المواهب» حيث يعود سبب نجاحها لكون أبطالها حقيقيين واقعيين من ناحية ومن ناحية أخرى يكمن سبب قيمتها الفنية في أن المؤلف أطلق العنان لخياله مبتعداً عن الوثائقية المحضة، غير ملتزم بالتطابق الخارجي للحقائق سعيا لكشف مغزاها.

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Alexander Alfredovich Bek (Russian: Александр Альфредович Бек; 3 January 1903 [O.S. 21 December 1902] – 2 November 1972), sometimes transliterated from the Russian Cyrillic as Aleksandr Bek or Anglicized to Alexander Beck, was a Soviet novelist and writer.

Alexander Bek was born on 3 January 1903. The son of a physician employed by the Imperial Russian Army, Bek received an upbringing in his native city of Saratov, where he attended a Realschule.

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the outbreak of the Russian Civil War between the Red and White movements, he joined the Bolsheviks' Red Army as a sixteen-year old volunteer and began contributing articles to the army's divisional newspaper in 1919. His first novel, Kurako, completed in honor of the outstanding Soviet metallurgical worker Mikhail Kurako and set down following the impressions left on Bek after a visit to the town of Kuznetsk, was published in 1934. Several other works in the style of socialist realism were written during the 1930s.
Bek returned for duty in the Soviet Army during World War II, in which he witnessed the Soviet defense of Moscow in 1941 and served as a war correspondent. He produced one of his life's most famous works, Volokolamsk Highway («Волоколамское шоссе»), in 1944, depicting the heroism of Moscow’s defenders. He witnessed the surrender of Nazi Germany in World War II in Berlin the following year.

The more famous of Bek's 1950s and 1960s works included the Several Days («Несколько дней») and General Panfilov's Reserve («Резерв генерала Панфилова»), both of which appeared in 1960, as well as the 1956 Talent (The Life of Berezhkov) («Талант (Жизнь Бережкова)»), which appeared in English as Berezhkov - The Story Of An Inventor and was based on the real life of a specialist involved in the Soviet automobile industry.

Bek's 1965 novel The New Appointment was written as a roman à clef centered around Soviet politician Ivan Tevosian, who under Joseph Stalin's period as head of the Soviet Union had been appointed to play a key role in heading the Soviet metallurgical production. Despite the initial announcement of the book's publication in the pages of Novy Mir, the novel was not published in the Soviet Union until the 1986 –in large part as a result of the protests of Tevosian's widow, who complained that the work unfairly discussed the more private aspects of her late husband's life. Accordingly, The New Appointment first appeared in Frankfurt am Main in 1972.

Bek died on 2 November 1972 in Moscow.